“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory,” warned W. Edward Deming, the world-renown expert on corporate performance and quality. When these words were written in the 1980's, the business world was being turned upside-down by customer demands for better service, higher quality goods, and lower prices. The manufacturing era, when products could be sold as quickly as they could be produced, was coming to an end. Consumers were becoming selective, and were quickly becoming more informed than they had ever been. Personal computing was growing, and information was beginning to drive the marketplace. Forward thinking companies were beginning to realize that there was significant hidden value in the information accrued during their normal course of business. Deming's words were to be a warning shot across the bow of companies captained by leaders who thought they could continue to run their business as they always had.
Now, fifteen years later and well into the information age, change is endemic and inevitable. And one of the most obvious changes is the way information is generated, analyzed, and consumed by businesses today. What was once simply a by-product of “production” work, information has become critical to the success of today's company. And managing that information has become an industry of its own. Information has become of such strategic value that, for many companies, it has replaced hard goods as the product of their efforts, and as the source of their revenue stream. Time Warner, for example, once generated income strictly by producing magazines (Time, Life) and movies (Warner Brothers). Now, as AOL/Time Warner, it is clearly focused on moving to complete digital delivery of entertainment, news, and other information through the America Online interface. Where they were once focused on turning paper, ink, and celluloid into magazines and movies, they are now focused on creating and distributing information as interactive web content or streaming video. Sure, they still produce magazines, but their future is presently viewed to be in electronic content (i.e., information) creation and delivery.
So how does a company manage its strategic information assets in today's rapidly changing business environment? And what challenges arise out of that task? Are there any preventive measures that can be taken to ease the “growing pains” associated with moving from one information paradigm to the next?